The Sticking Point
by FishareFriends
Summary: "John, I appreciate greatly all that you have done for my brother, but I think it's time you accept that he's not coming back." "You may have given up on him Mycroft, but I won't." John/Sherlock. Post-season 2 but pre-season 3. AU


Sherlock entered the large, white, immeasurably dull room and sighed. He'd always hated psychiatric wards. Having to be here, though it was just for a case, was enough to make his skin begin to crawl a response he rarely felt to anything at all.

He looked around, taking in the patients who milled around the room. Some were talking, some playing games or partaking in the various activities laid out for their entertainment, others merely sat, staring into space, vacant. The blank eyes of those patients disturbed Sherlock, but he wouldn't allow it to distract him. He would speak to his witness - though whether he'd get anything from her he didn't know, but it was worth the shot - and then get out of here and back to the Yard.

He walked briskly up to one of the nurses. "Sherlock Holmes, here to question a witness, Lestrade should have phoned ahead," he said, looking down at the women with his cold, calculating stare.

"Of course dear," she replied. He despised the use of the word `dear', he wasn't a child. However, he let it slide, prioritising the need for the interview over an argument with this woman.

"If you'd just like to take a seat over there, someone will be along," she indicated a large sofa, cream like the rest of the room. Sherlock took the offered seat, fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve, drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa, his hands twitching incessantly without particularly realising. It was his response to discomfort due to the situation, though it was such a rare feeling that his actions continued, unnoticed.

Sherlock's mind was also continually ticking. Scanning the patients, roaming over them, picking out each one for their reason of admission, taking note of their ticks and movements, cataloguing them away. They would probably be deleted as soon as he left, but for now the recording of each person in the room was an interesting task.

He'd just finished analysing a patient who obviously suffered from a rather severe case of schizophrenia (judging by the fact that she couldn't sit still and also seemed to be having a rather in depth conversation with the space of air before her), before a man he'd caught sight of in his peripherals, joined him on the sofa. He looked around, glancing over to obtain a more detailed picture of who had just occupied the seat beside him.

He was short, maybe 5'8, 5'9, it was harder to tell when he was sat, he had sandy blonde hair and rather bright blue eyes. He held himself at a slightly odd angle, one shoulder dropped ever so slightly and judging from the general look of him Sherlock assumed a military background.

Sherlock was still staring at the man when he spoke.

"You here visiting someone?" the man asked, looking over at Sherlock. He seemed unperturbed by the fact that the period of time Sherlock had spent staring at the stranger was significantly longer than that which was considered socially acceptable in today's society. However he seemed to just take it in his stride as he smiled at Sherlock, who, for some very odd reason, found his lips to have turned up and smiled back.

The moment he realised he was doing it he stopped, his face returning to the impassive mask he usually wore.

"Yes," he replied tersely, "I work with Scotland Yard, I'm here to interview a witness."

"Oh right, what did they witness?" the stranger asked.

"Double homicide, husband and wife shot at close range in their apartment building, the witness is their daughter, she wasn't well before the shooting but this was enough to finally send her over the edge. It's a cold case, has been for some time now, but I'm almost certain that it was the husbands mistress, possessive lover, couldn't stand that her lover wouldn't leave his wife for her, killed out of revenge.

"However with the trail so cold it's hard to find good evidence, I'm hoping the daughter will be lucid enough to tell us what she saw because she must've seen something. Otherwise she wouldn't have ended up here, there's a well hidden paper trail that leads straight from the mistresses bank account to an offshore account which conveniently pays for the extravagant fees of this place for none other than the daughter.

"Now when this first came to light many assumed that this was due to her being a family friend, and that she merely cared for the girl enough to get her some professional help but I think not, it was just her feeble attempt at keeping the daughter quite during the investigation, she assumed no one would do the leg work to interview someone considered to be mentally incompetent.

"But then the Yard never were willing, that's why they never solved it in the first place, it's a simple enough case, even Lestrade should have seen through the mistress's weak alibi it was simply..." but he trailed of, for the man was staring at him with such rapt attention it had put him entirely of his train of thought.

It wasn't until then that he realised he'd just spilt a great deal of intimate details to an open – albeit cold – police investigation to this complete stranger. But the man's face, with its warm smile and kind eyes, age beginning to show around them, gave of an air of trustworthiness that Sherlock rarely encountered. "Sounds fascinating," the man said, the smile still in place.

"It keeps the boredom at bay, keeps my mind sharp," Sherlock replied. "Sherlock Holmes, by the way," he said, by way of adhering to social norms and introducing himself.

"John Watson," came the response, "Nice to meet you."

"May I borrow your phone, there's no signal on mine," Sherlock asked, the concept that he would offer his pleasantries on how nice it was to meet John also were ignored, he had no such time for things such as that.

John handed his phone over without a word, Sherlock took it from him and, on the pretext of sending a text, inspected every inch of it from the inscription on the back to the scratches around the charging slot.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he asked, his focus still on John's phone.

"Afghanistan, how did you know?" John replied. There was something of in the tone of the question, but Sherlock overlooked it.

"I don't know, I saw," he replied. "Your haircut, the way you hold yourself says military. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You've been abroad, but not sunbathing. I noticed your limp as you approached, it's really bad when you walk but you don't sit as though it pains you, like you've forgotten about it. I know your therapist thinks it's psychosomatic - quite correctly, I'm afraid, at least partly. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan - Afghanistan or Iraq."

"I also know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him - possibly because he's an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife." "You observed this again?" John asked.

"Yes, your phone says it all. It's expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but from your attire and demeanour it's obvious you aren't decadent with money, you wouldn't waste any on this. It's a gift, then. Scratches. Not one, many over time. It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The man sitting next to me wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this, so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy. You know it already."

"Yes, the engraving," John nodded as Sherlock flipped the phone over.

Harry Watson

From Clara

xxx

He continued in the same manor. "Harry Watson: clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man's gadget. Could be a cousin, but from the lack of correspondents in your inbox it's unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so brother it is.

"Now, Clara. Who's Clara? Three kisses says it's a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently - this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble then - six months on he's just given it away. If she'd left him, he would have kept it. People do - sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her.

"He gave the phone to you: that says he wants you to stay in touch. But you're not close as your last exchange was over a month ago: that says you've got problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife; maybe you don't like his drinking."

"How did you deduce the drinking?" John's voice remained impassive. This bothered Sherlock slightly, usually his deductions evoked more of a reaction than this politely curious attitude John Watson maintained.

"Shot in the dark. Good one, though," he replied rather haughtily. "Power connection: tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man's phone; never see a drunk's without them."

Finished with his analysis, he held the phone out for John to take, without looking over.

"That ... was amazing."

Sherlock's head snaps around, facing John. His face is upturned slightly, to compensate for the difference in their heights, the corners of his mouth upturned also in a small smile. This was in odd juxtaposition with his eyes which conveyed what Sherlock ascertained to be poorly disguised sadness and loss.

This very unusual response, and the conflicting emotional display threw up a seed of doubt for a moment in Sherlock's mind. Perhaps this man was simply another patient permitted to wear civilian clothes. If he were mentally unstable it would certainly explain the contrast of John's reaction to those he often received.

This didn't stop him asking, "Do you think so?"

"Of course it was. It was extraordinary; it was quite extraordinary."

"That's not what people normally say." Sherlock, looked away again, turning his face back to the room at large.

"What do people normally say?"

"Piss of!"

Sherlock glanced over as John chuckled causing small vibrations in the sofa. He continued to smile up at him, the same odd emotions playing out across his face. Sherlock, once again, found the corners of his mouth involuntarily quirked upward also.

They sit in silence for some time, simply looking at one another, before Sherlock realised and again turned away. Though the action came with an unexpected reluctance, the source of which he couldn't trace, though it tickled at the back of his mind.

In an attempt to pass over the strangeness of the moment that had just occurred he asked, "Did I get anything wrong?"

Sherlock saw in his peripherals, John's face turn toward the room also.

"Harry and me don't get on, never have. Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they're getting a divorce; and Harry is a drinker."

The smile that spread across his face this time was much more of a smirk, a look of pride without even the illusion of modesty that most people tried to portray.

"Spot on, then. I didn't expect to be right about everything."

"Unfortunately Harry's short for Harriet."

Sherlock's face fell in an instant, his lips pursing, jaw working in obvious annoyance. "Harry's your sister."

A moment of silence.

"Sister," he spat furiously, through gritted teeth. "There's always some-thing."

He fumed silently, furious at himself for his very simple mistake. Defeated by adhering to the regulations of society, going with the norm rather than observing. Assuming due to cultural stereotypes.

However, before the fuming could reach full capacity, his internal tirade was cut short by John's voice.

"Well, you may have missed Harry, but your case seems to have all the details in place. How long have you been working on it?"

John's slow, even tone seemed to calm Sherlock, though he could not explain why. "Since around 12," he replied.

John glanced at his watch, his eyes widening slightly. "You deduced all that in two hours?"

"No, I deduced it in ten minutes, however the journey here was rather time consuming unfortunately."

John smiled again, "Truly brilliant. What else have you been working on?"

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, knowing before he'd found the words that there should be a plethora of cases to tell of in his cavernous memory. However nothing came.

Instead his mind started to blur, to seep away as though being invaded by fog. All the memories and thoughts seemed to blend together to form nothing but grey.

He was vaguely aware of John's face, it too blended. It was as though the sadness that had been hidden in his eyes, expanded to fill his face. The smile fell, and the eyes swam. Or maybe it was just his mind that was causing them to swim.

Then John's face, along with the rest of the conscious world, vanished into darkness.

* * *

**So that's chapter 1. I hope you enjoyed reading it. This has been floating around in my brain for a while but I finally got around to getting something on 'paper' over Christmas. This is my first attempt at something like this and also the first time anyone's ever actually read something of mine so if gentleness could be taken with any reviews given. I'd love to know what people think and just a general reception.**

Much Love xx


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